Stand to face, the sunin the misty swirlsof hot heightsand there, there is no comfortnever comfort, only the constant!The brain that never settles,the brain that fights, and fights for what?

To have some time alone,to wish, not to be alone!And know, even if out; There!Then what... then who... what to do?What to say, on. that. day, evening, night?Will I say hi with a faint smile,embarassed of my style, the sad eyes,the wistful pain, trying so hard to hide?Who will listen, who will want to, why?Why care, if I dare. to. try?

I might burst into tears, I might cry.Like I do everytime I think about this.Every single time...The sad, tired thoughts stop mestop it all, and...nothing.

Did not mean to click on poetry written online, just going through the most recent posts, but I used to be a poetry nerd, both writing and reading, and this is not only the first poetry originally published online that doesn't make me die a little inside--this is actually QUITE GOOD! And I don't say that lightly--I've faced up to and including physical violence for being a native speaker of a language not associated with white people (after all, Spanish comes from Europe, but friends, neighbours, co-workers face it,too) and I'm held to a logarithmically higher standard than native English speakers, so I'm VERY hard to get praise from, especially when not directly asked for.

I just want you to understand the DEGREE of sincerity here. That is a GOOD poem.

I've been processing your response in your thread by listening to "Theivery Corporation", this time Live at House of Blues from last fall (2017). I've been reading a bit of poetry online while I've been listening and came back to re-read your post, then I saw this compliment.

I like reading poetry, and in my way, I love finding the words when I write. I wrote that yesterday in my Windows 10 WordPad, then posted it. My metamorphosis with writing occurred among some people I trusted for many years. It took me a long time to decide I could write for myself. My background is derelict of writing and reading. I started just before I got sober in 1998, and I got sober in 2000. I thought being stoned made me creative... my thinking brain, when I can tap my emotional and creative, enmeshed with my desire to convey feelings, space and connection is what's evolved.

It's taken 20 years. I didn't care about writing, language, speaking, being coherent in sentence and paragraph until sometime in that timeframe. Now, I care a bit too much, and poetry nerd probably describes me quite well.

I think my first loves were wide ranging. James Wright, W.C.W., Neruda, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Li Bai (translations), Charles Bukowski, and so many more I could never recall. I sometimes buy local zines of poetry. I like to go to Art Fairs and visit the traveling poet, who will write about me, from talking to me.

For music, when I read this the second time (common for me to do that for poetry, once to get to know it, once with the flow), I actually thought of The Moody Blues. Particularly the spoken-word introduction of"Ride My See-Saw." My introduction to them was quite late; when I first came stateside to stay, WLIW 21 (PBS out of NJ, but available in NYC alongside Thirteen) ran their concert at Red Rocks. A few times, actually. Been a fan ever since.

Hey, you know what? Malcolm X taught himself to read and write in prison, and I happened upon a book he wrote about that one day, and not only did he have a Japanese American advocate of his (eraced from history and died in obscurity) but that book, he wrote about reading about the devastation Britain wroght on China by pushing opium, and it was the first time I'd been aware of a non-Asian who was pro-Asian, so I definitely have positive connotations with people who developed skill for the written word in adulthood.

I also used to do drugs. Partially to cope with my life, partially because I stopped being able to sleep naturally in '98. Now, I'm prescribed a cocktail for it, and as of two days ago, I'm back to having to sleep with the TV on, and I sleepwalked once this past year at least, first time in adulthood, but at least I can sleep without street drugs. Clean since '04, but I did use them for years.

That IS a wide range. I'm very picky with my poetry. I'd say the biggest one for me was Emily Dickinson. She helped me deal with all the deaths in my own life. I also still have a fascination with the more upbeat urban ghost fantasy fiction in Japanese comics and novels alike. I'd love to tell you you should read Mituda Sinzou if you also like that stuff, but he's only been translated into Mandarin. Some of Murakami's stuff has that theme, though cynical.

Anyway, Emily Dickinson, also Alfred Lord Tennyson. Not actually wild about Shakespeare's poetry, I prefer his comedies. Not too wild about the haiku format, either. Can't recommend any of that.

Can't remember much in the way of names... It was so long ago that I just buried myself in the library. And I'm so picky.

And, I'll be honest. One of my abusers, the ex-boyfriend, made me feel so bad about it, I stopped reading and writing it. Many years ago now. I know now he was cruel in many ways, and he was wrong, I just... Every time I try to get back into it, I hear the voice he used to do to mock my writing...

I'm quite aware of many oppressions in British history. It dismays me, just as any oppressions do. I despise how life, wrongly perceived as less-than, invited their base sociopathy. The eugenics crowd in particular angers me greatly. Slavery, manifest destiny, eugenics, etc... and any warring all seem to me, to rise from some sense of righteous superiority that's deranged.

I see the UK Transgender lies by TERFs at present, and I see the current admin. shall not be named, whom deserve to slip back into the slime whence they spawned, it's those oppressors who are rolling back HHS, HUD, DOE, DOJ, and Dept. of Defense rules acknowledging Trans people, and even some LGB. The degradation of Progress stirs me like it's done since I was 18 and voted against Reagan. That menace to marginalized people.

I am not well read, nor well exposed as I wish, but, I love Google, and I can catch up pretty quick. It's great.

That debase of your passions, your personal expression, words, saddens me. I have had to hide some, actually all and everything I write I hide from my wife. She's a debaser of the worst form. I'm stubborn, and eventually the words, that magic, that alliteration aural ambiance just draws me out.

TERFs aren't just in the UK. I was in Japan and a kid in the 80s, but word has it TERFs led a push here then to get gender affirmations procedures taken out of most insurance plans, and they were.

Yeah, not only are we still living with all the damage caused by both Nixon (devaluing of the dollar) and Regean (ohhh boy) caused, I'm calling this The 80s part II. Japan also experienced Wave I of post-war pro-war nationalism in '85 with the election of PM Nakasone. Now we're in Wave I with Abe. I also argue that Trump is a continuation of Regean in many ways; the nuts fringe Christianity, the racism (of course, Trump has been known to be a Hitler admirer, and Regean was the starter for the myth of the"lazy Black welfare queen" for one), the homophobia (something disturbing here--I can find hardly a trace of the literal die-ins queer AIDS sufferers held in DC; it's like they've been scrubbed from the Web), then there's Brexit in the UK, but the question is whether Cameron or May is the second Thatcher. I know very little about UK politics.

Do you think it's a good argument, that this stage was set in the 80s?

As for TERFs as a whole, yeah, there's a lot of sects of feminism that seek to limit who the movement elevates. There's also a sect that looks to empower white women by strengthening the racial hierarchy and boldening their oppression of non-white women. Examples run the gamut from that one creepy pop rock singer that contractually forbid her Japanese dancers from ever speaking in public and used them as "exotic decoration" to last year, a lesbian rally forbidding entry to Jewish lesbians. Not being female, I don't interact with this, but I know about it through female friends, and its obvious wrongness... Well, feminism has got some big kinks to work out. Got some really bad fringe movements who, much like Christianity and the Born Agains/Evangelicals, are taking over.

Yeah, man, that ex-boyfriend wasn't the only partner to do that to me, ex-girlfrend after him made me throw away (I ended up donating; grew up with WWII/Internment/Jim Crow refugee survivors. I don't believe in throwing away good stuff) IRREPLACEABLE tapes and she controlled my bank account and what I wore. Put spyware on my mobile phone, controlled who I was friends with/chased many of them away.

A point here though is these people that did not accept harmless interests of mine did not accept me. That's why they controlled even how I dressed or identified. Your current situation may not be violent abuse, but there's still that belittling, which when it's for real how they think of you, is lessening you, making them superior, it can be said that it's a kind of emotional abuse, there's still that element. When you're first going out hiding things and revealing them slowly is one thing, but a husband and wife should accept and even encouraged each other to be themselves, and passions are a part of that. A big part. Loving someone necessitates loving who they are. And regardless of the level of relationship, they accept you or they don't, same with you accepting them. If you can't accept a part of each other, you probably break up. But this is your wife, not new girlfriend. Something is majorly off there.

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